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Pragmatist
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19 Mar 2012, 8:00 pm

(Sorry for posting so many threads on Aspergers, I was stalking for a long time and now I got the opportunity to ask all my questions. And my curiosity is endless.)
I've often seen tests for autism, where one of the criteria is inflexibility - following the same routines, inability to cope with everyday change, avoidance of new things. And I was always wondering whether I had it or not, because I couldn't determine. Can anyone describe me example situations where this gets "tested", so that I can determine whether I have it or not?

I can relate to it only in a way that involves my ADHD - I know that most Aspies have ADHD (and it might be different from the traditional ADHD), but I'm not sure if that's sufficient. For example, if I have to do something different right now, I'll have to face a mental block that I usually face when I try to study and which leads me to procrastination. On the other hand, I'm extremely curious naturally (extremely high systemization), so I want to try everything, as long as it doesn't require me to concentrate or invest time (because my time management is horrible and my time is usually reserved for mandatory things, although much of it goes for procrastination). And maybe there is something additional to that mental block, caused by bad capability to concentrate, but I'm not sure if there is.



btbnnyr
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19 Mar 2012, 8:34 pm

One eggsample is keeping eberrything in your room in the same place and feeling like you are totally discombobulated if someone moves anything and being unable to continue functioning until the thing is moved back to its one true coordinates and feeling just fine after that.

Another is sticking eggstremely to certain routines, like morning ritual or route to location or routine for a task, like doing the same small steps in the eggsac same order whenever you do that activity, and the difference between autistic and NT routine is perhaps autistic people being able to do something fine in one true way but not at all in any other way and NTs being annoyed when you can't do it your way but still being able to do it some other way. Autistic children who cannot handle a deviation from routine might grow up into adults who can, even if it is discomfiting.

Also, some rituals are considered non-functional, like changing the channel on the TV in your one true way or doing something according to some system that you've created for yourself, maybe involving your favorite numbers.

Another problem is when people impose uneggspected changes upon you, like if you and someone else agreed to go to two stores, then the other person suddenly wants to go to two more stores. For anyone, this could feel disruptive and they would be annoyed, but again, the difference for an autistic person could be the functioning one moment vs. non-functioning next moment, after the introduction of the change. Again, a child might have a meltdown, but an adult might need some time to re-orient to the new plan, such as by playing it in your head many times, then could become functional again and go through with it.

Avoidance of new things, I'm not sure about in general. For me, it's mostly that it takes a very long awhile to adjust and attach myself to some new food or new clothes or new song, but suddenly, it might click one day, and I like and am glommed onto the new thing just as much as I was to the old thing.



FredOak3
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20 Mar 2012, 2:03 pm

Another one is becoming attached to objects for no apparent reason. Like you use the same spoon, or only drink your coffee from a certain mug and it flips you out when someone else uses it.



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20 Mar 2012, 2:14 pm

I find a good example to be how do you react if you're waiting for a bus and its a minute or two late?

Do you have things you need with you always or you're incredibly uncomfortable and less functional?

How do you react if someone say you'll go out to eat at one restaurant, then at the last minute changes where they want to bring you?

How do you react when a store you shop or shopped in regularly changes its layout?



becky13
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20 Mar 2012, 2:49 pm

>I find a good example to be how do you react if you're waiting for a bus and its a minute or two late?

I think it is totally unacceptable when buses are late, I get really anxious, I worry that I've missed it or that I'm in the wrong place, and I get stressed about being late.

>Do you have things you need with you always or you're incredibly uncomfortable and less functional?

My handbag, will loads of stuff I won't need, but is there 'just in case'.

>How do you react if someone say you'll go out to eat at one restaurant, then at the last minute
>changes where they want to bring you?

I would not allow that to happen. I have to tell people that they need to give me half an hour to process changes or unexpected demands, otherwise my immediate response is 'no'.

>How do you react when a store you shop or shopped in regularly changes its layout?

I hate it, hate it, hate it. I can't find anything, I can't read my shopping list, I forget stuff and have to go round the shop twice.

Other stuff, I have to do my morning routine in order otherwise I forget to do stuff. If someone interrupts me I can forget stuff, and if my partner doesn't go to work before me and tries to talk to me, I can't cope and I can't do anything.



btbnnyr
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20 Mar 2012, 3:06 pm

How do you react if you're waiting for a bus and its a minute or two late?
I eggspect buses to be late, so this is not a problem for me. It's a bonus when they are on time or early.

Do you have things you need with you always or you're incredibly uncomfortable and less functional?
No special items for me.

How do you react if someone say you'll go out to eat at one restaurant, then at the last minute changes where they want to bring you?
I hate this, and I lose my appetite and all will to eat food for the rest of the day.

How do you react when a store you shop or shopped in regularly changes its layout?
Annoying and inconvenient, but I adjust quickly, in fact more quickly than most people who have gone shopping with me at the local Walmart that keeps changing its layout. My one goal when shopping is to buy the things and get out as quickly as possible, and when I am driven by this mission, changes in layout are not going to thwart me from leaving the store almost as fast as I would have left it otherwise. It is OK by me if Walmart changes its layout, but no one had move any of the small objects in my room from their one true coordinates.

I find that my rigidities all have to do with the order that I keep for myself and the activities that I do a certain way and disruptions by others of my systems, not with the variabilities in the external world. I no longer actively impose this rigidity on others, as I did when I was little and we had to go to the park near my house eberry single day because we went there once and had to continue, over and over and over again and again and again.



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20 Mar 2012, 3:10 pm

Pragmatist wrote:
(Sorry for posting so many threads on Aspergers, I was stalking for a long time and now I got the opportunity to ask all my questions. And my curiosity is endless.)
I've often seen tests for autism, where one of the criteria is inflexibility - following the same routines, inability to cope with everyday change, avoidance of new things. And I was always wondering whether I had it or not, because I couldn't determine. Can anyone describe me example situations where this gets "tested", so that I can determine whether I have it or not?

I can relate to it only in a way that involves my ADHD - I know that most Aspies have ADHD (and it might be different from the traditional ADHD), but I'm not sure if that's sufficient. For example, if I have to do something different right now, I'll have to face a mental block that I usually face when I try to study and which leads me to procrastination. On the other hand, I'm extremely curious naturally (extremely high systemization), so I want to try everything, as long as it doesn't require me to concentrate or invest time (because my time management is horrible and my time is usually reserved for mandatory things, although much of it goes for procrastination). And maybe there is something additional to that mental block, caused by bad capability to concentrate, but I'm not sure if there is.


This is less pronounced in adults. You are more likely to be inflexible with your thoughts and interactions with others, such as thinking your approach to a problem is the one and only way something can be done.

In children this is more likely to be adhering to your routines and likes, which in a child might be foods, routes or other aspects of daily life.

Jason



LonelyJar
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26 Oct 2014, 5:34 pm

I can also be pretty inflexible.



Cryptex
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26 Oct 2014, 6:50 pm

Yes, I'm pretty inflexible. But it depends on the situation.